Critics

The rationalist agenda in Judaism was certainly not without its critics. Although we have already witnessed this criticism of Maimonides during the so-called Maimonidean Controversies, there also exist several important individuals who tried to offer alternatives to philosophy. Although often trained in philosophy, their goal was to undermine the philosophical enterprise from within. In this regard, perhaps the best known is the pre-Maimonidean Judah Halevi (c. 1075-1141). At the age of 50, so the legend goes, Halevi turned his back on what he perceived to be the inauthenticity of Judeo-Arabic cultural forms. Disillusioned with the inter-confessional Neoplatonism of his day, he was especially critical of how it ignored the particularities of the historical record, especially when it came to Judaism. In his Kuzari, a dialogue, the rabbinic protagonist responds to the philosopher's articulation of the ‘‘God of Aristotle'' with the credo that ‘‘I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’’ With this claim he signals the importance of experience over intellection, and that without the proper actions belief is ultimately unimportant. He also faults the philosophers for their improbable speculation about divine intellects (e. g., why should there be only ten) and about causation.

Like Halevi, Hasdai Crescas (1340-1410) attempted to undermine the dominant philosophical system of his age, now the Aristotelianism of Maimonides and Averroes. He did this primarily by trying to disprove Aristotle’s physics. In so doing, he rejected Aristotle’s conception of a self-contained universe wherein everything moves toward its natural place. He further rejected the Aristotelian account that ruled out an actual infinite series of causes. Crescas argued, on the contrary, that infinite time, infinite space, and an infinite series of causes was indeed possible. This infinite universe, in turn, was held together by infinite divine love that regulated both cosmic and human affairs. Crescas also sought to undermine the Maimonidean summum bonum of intellectual perfection and the conjunction between the human and Active intellects. Rather, he argued that human perfection was based on the love of God actualized through the performance of the divine commandments as revealed in the Torah.

Isaac Abravanel (1437-1508) - father of Judah Abravanel - was highly critical of Maimonides. He faults Maimonides, and his later followers, for defining Judaism in accord with the foreign fashion of other nations. For Abravanel, however, Judaism has nothing in common with foreign sciences because the teachings of the Torah are revelations from God. He particularly faulted Mai-monides’ attempts to define the principles or articles of faith of Judaism. Such a task, according to Abravanel, was impossible because all the commandments are of equal value. He is also highly critical ofMaimonides’ conception that prophetic visions were creations of the imaginative faculty and thus susceptible to rational description. On the contrary, Abravanel argued that they were miraculous occurrences and he thus defends the irrationality of miracles and their importance for Judaism.